


Art In The Expanse Of Your Skin

by wildenessat221b



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coming Out, Depression, Humor, I hope, I suppose, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Vik has tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 01:10:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10583292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildenessat221b/pseuds/wildenessat221b
Summary: Viktor has five tattoos. They all hold a world of meaning.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, wonderful people! Mind the tags, and please enjoy! It would be wonderful if you would comment. Thank you for reading!

1-

'It's done.'

Yakov let the scissors hover over the counter for a moment before setting them down next to the long, silky ponytail that used to be on Viktor's head. He brushed a couple of stray hairs off his left shoulder, then stepped back to admire his handiwork. It wasn't a professional job, by any stretch of the imagination, and Viktor (the vain bastard) would almost certainly be at a ridiculously overpriced barber who use gold leaf in their shampoo within the next 24 hours. But years spent in communal housing in the glorious Soviet years of dripping taps and mouldy bread meant that this wasn't the first haircut he'd given, and it wasn't half bad, he tended to think. 

'What do you think?'

Viktor let out a ragged breath through his nose. His eyes were still squeezed shut, and his jaw clenched. 

'Don't want to look.'

Yakov sighed. 

'I haven't done something stupid, or... I don't know, given you a buzz cut. Tempting, but no.'

Viktor whined. 

'You wanted this.'

Yakov perched on the side of the bath, and listened to the tick of the clock. Viktor remained stubbornly statuesque, face screwed up like a tantruming toddler.  He huffed, once the two minute mark passed. 

'Viktor.'

Viktor grunted. 

'Fine, fine!'

He sat up straight, and took in a deep breath. A hand fluttered dramatically to his chest, and he whistled through his teeth. 

'This is terrifying.'

Yakov was too old for this shit. 

Slowly, Viktor peeled open his left eye. When he looked in the mirror and it didn't shatter, he opened the other. 

Silence, then a relieved breath. 

'You're a miracle worker. I'm not bald.'

Yakov laughed.

'Oh, ye of little faith.'

Viktor stood up, and craned his neck from side to side, admiring himself from every angle. He shook his head a couple of times, astounded by the fluidity of his movement and lightness of his skull. He smiled, he fawned, he even pouted. 

Yakov shook his head fondly. 

'Yes Viktor, you're beautiful. Now help me get some hair off the floor.'

'Don't throw the ponytail away, I can donate it!'

'Alright.'

'Or you could wear it!'

Yakov snorted. 

'Yes Viktor, I could conceal the grey hairs you've given me with... More grey hairs you've given me. Sterling idea.'

Viktor gasped.

'My hair is platinum, you fiend!'

Yakov held up his hands in surrender. 

'If you say so.'

They scooped the hair that couldn't be salvaged into a supermarket carrier bag, and then into the bin. 

Viktor thought he'd be sad, but it was oddly liberating. 

'Yakov?'

'Hmm?'

He leaned on the kitchen counter, and let his new fringe fall over his eye. 

'Just because I've...' he gestured to his hair, 'Doesn't mean I'm any less me. You know that, don't you?'

'Of course I do.'

(It was a month since Viktor had moved in with Yakov because his house had grown cold when his father found him with his fingers tangled in another boy's hair. It had been a long time coming, because boys don't skate, and boys don't wear flowers, and boys don't have long hair.)

Viktor was a champion, a winner, an ethereal being who had and held the world. He was captivating, motivated, untouchable and strong. 

Viktor was a child. 

'I wouldn't have it any other way.'

Viktor smiled. 

The next morning, Viktor was taking Maccachin on his walk, with the sun peeking over the hills. It was warm, and light was bouncing off the pavements. The air smelt clean, and the world felt right. 

And because it felt right, he did something impulsive. 

He stepped into a dirty looking tattoo parlour, ignored the grumbles telling him that dogs aren't allowed, and with Macca's head rested on his lap, got a small pink triangle inked onto the underside of his wrist by a scowling artist. 

A girl with metal in her face and a darkness to her beauty asked him what it meant and he told her with a smile that he was gay however long his hair was. 

She raised an eyebrow and nodded her approval. 

2-

The Olympics were glorious, and standing on top of the podium, with gold on his chest, Viktor felt glorious too. 

He'd broken two world records, smashed them to pieces, and Yakov had hugged him roughly, held him tight and called him, 'my boy.' 

He'd been the fastest thing, the highest thing, the most fluid, the most beautiful thing on the planet, he must have been. The world was in colour, smeared over his vision and blurred, and my god was he euphoric. 

The crowd were screaming, interlaced with the cathedral hymn proclaiming "you've won, you're a hero and fuck your father because boys do skate" in his head. There was sweat beading on his forehead, and his costume was sticky against his body. 

"This is life," he thought, "this is what living is."

His smile faltered for a moment, when his brain lapsed into, "I'm twenty years old, and what if this is as good as it gets," but it returned quickly and remained authentic. 

He got drunk, and giggled with Chris, then he got drunker, and kissed Chris, then he got drunker still and danced with Chris so they didn't do something they'd regret. 

'You're a king, Viktor,' Chris mumbled into the skin of his neck, 'I've kissed a king.'

Viktor hummed an agreement, as the lights turned from pink to purple and the music got louder.

'Oh, how the mighty can fall.'

He wasn't sure why he said it, or why he was laughing so harshly, but he carried on dancing and watched the stars through the glass ceiling. 

He awoke the next morning on Chris' hotel room floor, with a dreadful headache and the world at his feet. 

And stereotypes and predictability be damned, he got the Olympic rings tattooed into his right shoulder blade. 

3-

Are you sure you want to do this?'

Six years in the spotlight. Six years of pretty girls. Six years of "put your hands on your hips, smile and pretend you're in love." 

He was tired. 

He was so, so tired. 

'I'm sure.'

Yakov nodded. 

'Just... you know... be delicate.'

Viktor's eyes took on a delicious glint, and the corner of his mouth quirked up. He looked like a mischievous toddler. Yakov felt his stomach drop.

'Oh lord...'

Definitely too old for this shit. 

Viktor just grinned, as a reporter with her blonde hair piled up onto the top of her head stuck a microphone under his chin. Yakov backed away.

They talked for a while, standard questions about how (not "if" anymore) he intended to win, what his next theme was going to be and where he got his inspiration from. He answered professionally with pre-prepared sentences, and smiled a charming smile. 

'And what do you think about your competitors?'

He grinned. Yakov groaned. 

'They're worthy opponents. Excellent sportsmen. And a lot of them have excellent asses too. Christophe from Switzerland, for example. He's also an excellent kisser. I have to go now. Thank you!'

He waved at the camera. 

The reporter dropped her microphone. 

Yakov counted his blessings that it could have been worse. At least he didn't get naked. 

Viktor found Chris in the bar that evening, and as soon as he saw him, he began howling with laughter. 

'Excellent, Viktor,' he gasped, doubled over with his face red, 'You're a saint.'

Viktor clapped him on the back. 

'Glad you approve.'

Back in St Petersburg, he went back to the dingy studio where he'd gotten his pink triangle, and got the date of his coming out tattooed onto his foot. 

It was important... It was the start of the end of his pretending. 

(Which was possibly the start of his decline.

He just didn't have the energy to act anymore.)

4-

The days became heavy. It was a gradual thing, like the melting of a glacier. He was still imposing, still majestic, still tall, still impenetrable, but getting worn down. 

He'd find himself staring into space more often, dragging his feet on the ice, and sometimes just... Stopping. 

And this was bad, this was very bad, because he needed to win otherwise it wasn't worth it. So he skated from before dawn until after dark, until his feet were raw and bleeding through his skates. His chest heaved and his bones ached with the sheer effort of being, and Yakov yelled and yelled for him to get off the ice, you're done for the day, stop or you'll make yourself properly done. 

He couldn't leave, that'd be giving up, just ten more minutes, let me have this or I'll have nothing. 

He'd soar on shaking legs until they physically couldn't hold him anymore and he'd collapse into the barriers. 

'You're not helping anyone by destroying yourself, Viktor,' Yakov whispered roughly, pressing ice into one of his body parts or another in the darkened locker room. 

Viktor was too exhausted to reply, and Yakov had to all but carry him to the car to deliver him home. 

He slept in the spare room, but left before Viktor woke. 

This was the price of greatness. It was singularity, the pouring of his soul into a small and enclosed area until it overflowed. That was what had happened - he'd filled up his 'skating container' too much, and it couldn't be contained anymore, but he had nowhere else to fill.  

It was like bleeding out, like being crushed, like sinking and like floating away all at once. 

His fingers shook when he poured himself a glass of water, and he dropped and smashed it. 

It looked like him. 

He knelt down to pick up the shards, and ended up just staring at them for a long time, Macca standing vigil. He laughed, rough and bitter. 

'Oh, how the mighty fall.'

He remembered saying those very words into Chris' chest when he was on top of the world, and though he didn't believe in premonition, he could think of no other explanation. 

He kept struggling, kept working and kept smiling. He fell more than he'd ever fallen, and slept less. Yakov eyes burned into his skull more often than not, and Macca whined pitifully every time collapsed a little too heavily onto the sofa.

He found himself in the tattoo parlour one night, made half of glass and half of concrete, with his head somewhere miles high and detached from his body. 

'Do something. I don't care what, just make me feel.'

It was a different parlour and a different artist. She was young, and soft with sad, smart eyes. 

It was silently that she marked a word into the back of Viktor's neck in curling cursive. 

'Человек.'

'Human.'

It took until he took a bad fall and ruined his ankle for him to break properly. 

He held it together at the ER, smiled when the physiotherapist told him he was out of Nationals, and walked with a dignified posture on his crutches. 

Then he sat in his kitchen and screamed into Yakov's chest. It was blind panic, genuine terror that clenched his heart and froze his brain. 

This is it. 

It must be it. 

I have nothing else. 

Yakov, all credit to him, held him tight, held him together, stopped him from shattering. He gripped his shoulders tight and didn't say anything, just let him scream.

He flopped onto the table when he couldn't scream anymore, spineless and spent. 

'I think,' Yakov said, painfully tender and soft, 'That you need to sleep for about a week. And then, you can start physio, you can start training and you can start building yourself back up. You're not done Viktor. Nowhere near.'

'I feel it.'

'I know. You're not.'

He did sleep for about a week, and Yuri Plisetsky walked Macca for him. He was young and wonderful, a blazing fireball of energy and light who Viktor had taught a triple axel to. He walked like the ground had somehow mortally offended him, and screamed at people that he didn't care in a tone that inferred the opposite. 

Stammi Vicino was to be Viktor's glorious return, refreshed and recovered. He didn't quite feel crushed under the expectation, but it was still heavy. 

Before he skated, Yakov gave him a look like he might break, but afterwards, like he was a human being. 

Viktor figured he'd skated well. 

5-

Viktor woke before Yuri. The years of pre-dawn training were engrained in him and untainted by crappy college sleep schedules. 

Light was creeping over the top of the blackout blinds, and their was a faint rushing of traffic outside. Macca was snoring at his feet. His and Yuri's medals were framed on the wall over his head. 

He was tangled in Yuri's limbs, legs trapped together and arms wrapped around each other's bare torso under the sheets. Viktor's chin was pressed into his hair, and he was warm, heavy and stabilising. 

As happened so often now, he smiled to himself. 

Not a bitter smile. Not a poster smile. 

A content, calm, whole smile. 

I'm not going to sink, or float off. 

He'd been wrong at the 2008 Olympics, all those years ago. He hadn't found life. He hadn't been living. But this... This was it. 

Yuri had given him so much. A home, a passion, somewhere else to pour his soul. A shoulder to cry on if he needed it, a best friend to laugh with, a warm body at night. Gold around his finger, a name. 

A small tattoo on his left hip, written in swirling English. 

'Life and love.'


End file.
